This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9 billion project to build the Barclays Center arena and 16 high-rise buildings at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park Brooklyn in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake in 15 towers. New York State still calls it Atlantic Yards. Note: archive at right.

And what about those for-sale affordable units? The fine print is vague

A major question raised about the 600 to 1000 affordable for-sale units, on and off-site, announced by developer Forest City Ratner as part of the Atlantic Yards Housing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is why they were absent from the General Project Plan approved by the Empire State Development Corporation. That wasn't cause for confidence.

The recently-unveiled State Funding Agreement does, however, mention the pledge that's contained in the agreement FCR signed with the advocacy group ACORN.

However, as far as I can tell, the document has no teeth, since it asserts no deadlines and no penalties, though it does assign deadlines for other phases of the project and penalties for failure to meet those deadlines.

For one thing, if FCR doesn't build as many market-rate condos--and all housing is now on hold--the MOU appears to give the developer an out. Also, the construction of for-sale affordable units depends on unspecified subsidies.

Big pledge?

The developer, in a 12/20/06 statement after the approval by the Public Authorities Control Board, suggested that the total was ironclad, even if some onsite units were a goal rather than a certainty:As part of the affordable housing program, FCRC has already agreed to build 600 to 1,000 affordable home ownership units on or off site. Today, FCRC announced that it will seek to build at least 200 of these affordable home-owner units on site (they will be part of the proposed 6,430 units of housing already approved as part of the Atlantic Yards FEIS/GPP). FCRC will also seek to build the remaining affordable home-owner units as close to Atlantic Yards as possible.

Has condo plan changed?

Here's the pledge from the MOU for affordable condos:For sale housing - Pursuant to paragraph 5 of the MOU, Developer and ACORN will work on a program to develop affordable for-sale units, which are intended to be in the range of 600 to 1000 units, over the course of ten (10) years and can be on or off site. It is currently contemplated that a majority of the affordable for-sale units will be sold to families in the upper affordable income tiers.

That ten-year promise has not surfaced elsewhere. Note that the pledge of 600 to 1000 for-sale units, however, was meant to match, at least in part, the 1930 market-rate condos added to the plan, to help achieve the 50/50 affordable housing goal.

But read the fine print: If the projected number of residential units should increase for any reason that the Developer determines to be economically necessary, both the Developer and ACORN will work towards developing a program that follows the same guidelines and principles set forth in this document.

In other words, the for-sale affordable units depend on the market-rate condos. That's logical, but it also means that if those condos don't get built--or are built over a very long period--the affordable for-sale units could lag as well.

What the document says

Perhaps that's why the State Funding Agreement (Part 34) is so vague:Developer shall provide 600-1000 units of affordable home ownership units [sic] as close to the Atlantic Yards project site as possible, including but not limited to the following neighborhoods: Prospect Heights, Fort Greene, Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Clinton Hill and Park Slope. Developer shall seek to build 200 of these affordable home ownership units directly on the Atlantic Yards project site (assuming the appropriate subsidy required to fund these affordable home ownership units is available and the density levels approved in the ESDC GPP are maintained). Developer shall seek to make the affordable home ownership units affordable to families with income up to 150% of AMI and to make homeownership opportunities available to families with incomes below 100% AMI.

However, despite seemingly forceful language ("shall provide"), the document, as far as I can tell, offers no guarantees or sanctions for failure to meet the target.

While that's part of the lawsuit, more prominent are claims of racial discrimination and retaliation, with black employees claiming repeated abuse by white supervisors, preferential treatment toward Hispanic colleagues, and retaliation in response to complaints.

Two individual supervisors, for example, are charged with referring to black employees as “black motherfucker,” “dumb black bitch,” “black monkey,” “piece of shit” and “nigger.”

Two have referred to an employee blind in one eye as “cyclops,” and “the one-eyed guy,” and an employee with a nose disorder as “the nose guy.”

There's been no official response yet though arena spokesman Barry Baum told the Daily News they, but take “allegations of this kind very seriously” and have "a zero tolerance policy for…

To supporters of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, it's a long-awaited plan for long-overlooked land. "The Atlantic Yards area has been available for any developer in America for over 100 years,” declared Borough President Marty Markowitz at a 5/26/05 City Council hearing.

Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, mused on 11/15/05 to WNYC's Brian Lehrer, “Isn’t it interesting that these railyards have sat for decades and decades and decades, and no one has done a thing about them.” Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco, in a 12/19/04 New York Times article ("In a War of Words, One Has the Power to Wound") described the railyards as "an empty scar dividing the community."

But why exactly has the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Vanderbilt Yard never been developed? Do public officials have some responsibility?

At right is a photo of a poster spotted in Hasidic Williamsburg right. Clearly there's an event scheduled at the Barclays Center aimed at the Haredi Jewish community (strict Orthodox Jews who reject secular culture), but the lack of English text makes it cryptic.

The website Matzav.com explains, Protest Against Israeli Draft of Bnei Yeshiva Rescheduled for Barclays Center:
A large asifa to protest the drafting of bnei yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel into the Israeli army that had been set to take place this month will instead be held on Sunday, 17 Sivan/June 11, at the Barclays Center in Downtown Brooklyn, NY.
So attendees at a big gathering will protest an apparent change of policy that will make it much more difficult for traditional Orthodox Jewish students--both Hasidic (who follow a rebbe) and non-Hasidic (who don't)--to get deferments from the draft. Comments on the Yeshiva World website explain some of the debate.

First mentioned in April, the Atlantic Yards project in Atlanta is moving ahead--and has the potential to nudge Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn further down in Google searches.

According to a 5/30/17 press release, Hines and Invesco Real Estate Announce T3 West Midtown and Atlantic Yards:
Hines, the international real estate firm, and Invesco Real Estate, a global real estate investment manager, today announced a joint venture on behalf of one of Invesco Real Estate’s institutional clients to develop two progressive office projects in Atlanta totalling 700,000 square feet. T3 West Midtown will be a 200,000-square-foot heavy timber office development and Atlantic Yards will consist of 500,000 square feet of progressive office space in two buildings. Both projects are located on sites within Atlantic Station in the flourishing Midtown submarket.
Hines will work with Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture (HPA) as the design architect for both T3 West Midtown and Atlantic Yards. DLR Group will be t…

Pacific Park Brooklyn is seriously delayed, Forest City Realty Trust said yesterday in a news release, which further acknowledged that the project has caused a $300 million impairment, or write-down of the asset, as the expected revenues no longer exceed the carrying cost.

The Cleveland-based developer, parent of Brooklyn-based Forest City Ratner, which is a 30% investor in Pacific Park along with 70% partner/overseer Greenland USA, blamed the "significant impairment" on an oversupply of market-rate apartments, the uncertain fate of the 421-a tax break, and a continued increase in construction costs.

While the delay essentially confirms the obvious, given that two major buildings have not launched despite plans to do so, it raises significant questions about the future of the project, including:if market-rate construction is delayed, will the affordable h…

Real Estate Weekly, reporting on trends in Chinese investment in New York City, on 11/18/15 quoted Jim Costello, a senior vice president at research firm Real Capital Analytics:
“They’re typically building high-end condos, build it and sell it. Capital return is in a few years. That’s something that is ingrained in the companies that have been coming here because that’s how they’ve grown in the last 35 years. It’s always been a development game for them. So they’re just repeating their business model here,” he said.
When I read that last November, I didn't think it necessarily applied to Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, now 70% owned (outside of the Barclays Center and B2 modular apartment tower), by the Greenland Group, owned significantly by the Shanghai government.
A majority of the buildings will be rentals, some 100% market, some 100% affordable, and several--the last several built--are supposed to be 50% market/50% subsidized. (See tentative timetable below.)Selling development …

Click on graphic to enlarge. This is post-dated to stay at the top of the blog. It will be updated as announced configurations change and buildings launch. The August 2014 tentative configurations proposed by developer Greenland Forest City Partners will change, and the project is already well behind that tentative timetable.